Flirting with Danger by Bev Hardy (digital e reader TXT) 📖

club this morning, she was American," he blurted out, "I don't know her though; I never even spoke to her. But phone the club, you can ask Hannah at reception about it because Hannah threw her out. That's it," he exclaimed in a eureka moment," she wanted to get into the Club for some reason."
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"We have to find this woman Ed. Where is she?" Charlie asked, scanning the garden area after dragging Eddie back up the hill.
"Err, I can't see her," he replied, trying to catch his breath.
"Ed, I can't stress how important it is that we find her. Come on," she said, urging him forward to search through the groups of people.
"No, I can't see her," he repeated, "oh wait," he exclaimed, straining to see through the crowds, "No. Thought that might have been her," he said, pointing to a woman sitting at one of the tables. He sighed, taking a last look around. "I think she might have left. People are beginning to leave now, sorry hunny."
Charlie ran a hand through her hair in frustration and slid onto a nearby chair. Eddie pulled up a chair next to her and sat also.
"Charlie," Eddie began after a short silence.
"Hmm," she answered, her mind elsewhere.
"Are you and Luke on another case or something? Is that why he came back?"
She turned to him then. "Not exactly, but we do need to find this woman Ed."
"Sorry," he replied, feeling that he'd let her down somehow. "I can't imagine you being a secret agent," he said out of the blue. "I've heard people say how amazing you were. I wish I'd known you then."
She laughed. "I'm the same person you know, Ed."
"I know, but it's a big part of your life that I didn't see," he replied.
She was very tempted then to share something with him that she had kept a secret from everyone there at the Club. It wasn't as if she didn't trust him, or if she had told him, it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but something made her hesitant.
"Sorry, I'm being silly, but I think the world of you," he said emotionally, reaching out to give her a hug.
She hugged him back, feeling quite emotional in return.
It was then, when Eddie glanced over Charlie's shoulder, that he spotted her.
"Charlie," he said, pulling back suddenly, "she's over there, by the desert table."
Charlie swung her head around to see who she knew must be the woman from New York, standing assessing a row of left over gateaux. She jumped up and headed in her direction. Eddie followed, intrigued.
"Hello there," Charlie said, approaching the woman.
Bella turned guiltily.
"They look good, don't they?" Charlie commented, glancing down at the deserts.
"Sure do," Bella replied. "Aint eaten all day neither. Sure could do with a drink too."
"Hmm, the problem is," Charlie wrinkled up her nose, "some of the people here are a bit… well, sticklers for the rules. If they catch you here, they will escort you out for being a non-member."
Bella scanned the garden nervously. "But I'm Richie's girl from New York," she said.
Charlie sighed and shook her head. "It makes no difference I'm afraid, non-members are non-members. I'm a friend of Richie's though so I tell you what, we are going to be moving this food back into the kitchens now, but come with us and you can have some cake and champagne in there. How does that sound?"
Bella's face lit up. "Sounds real good to me, I'm hungry as hell."
Charlie picked up one of the gateaux and gestured for Eddie to do the same. He followed her lead, bewildered with what she was doing.
Instead of heading for the main kitchen, which Charlie knew at that point would be full of staff ready to party, she turned away from that door and continued further down to the end of the corridor, where there was a second smaller kitchen, used when the larger kitchen was being overstretched.
They entered. Charlie placed the gateaux down on the kitchen counter and invited Bella to take a seat at the small wooden table in the centre of the room.
"Eddie, would you like to do the honours?" she said. "There's some champagne in the fridge. Could you open a bottle for us?"
"Champagne," Bella smiled, "You guys are livin' the high life here, eh."
Eddie pulled out a bottle from the fridge and spent the next few minutes struggling with the cork. Charlie stood tensely behind Bella.
Pop!
Finally the cork exploded out of the bottle to the cheers of Bella, closely followed by a shout of, "Hey! What's goin' on?" when she found herself unexpectedly handcuffed to the table leg.
Eddie's eyes widened and he looked up at Charlie with confusion.
Charlie moved around the table to stand in front of Bella and reached into her bag to pull out her MI5 ID card, showing it to Bella. Eddie focused on the card, his eyes glued to it with surprise.
Bella's face had suddenly lost all colour, a tell-tale sign in itself.
"We are currently investigating the murder of one Mr Roberto Borelli and we have reason to believe that you have information regarding this," she announced.
"I know nothin'," Bella replied immediately.
Hmm, well, it seemed unlikely that this woman herself was the murderer, as surely she wouldn't have set up Luke and then returned to the scene of her own crime. She clearly did know something though, from her reaction.
"We have reason to believe that you do," Charlie replied. "I suggest you tell us what you know or you yourself will become a suspect."
"Are you gonna arrest me?" she asked.
"At the moment, we are just following up lines of enquiry, lines which lead us to you."
Bella shook the handcuffs, which made a loud rattling sound. "What's with these then? You can't keep me here like this."
"Look," Charlie said suddenly, leaning across the table towards her, "As you can see," she gestured to her clothes, "I don't work for the Met. I am carrying out an elite unit investigation into international crime; if I want to keep you here for questioning, I have the authority to do so."
Eddie listened to Charlie with mouth agape.
"Well, what if I don't say nothin', eh? If I claim the fifth? What happens then?"
Damn it, this woman was stubborn.
Charlie laughed. "The fifth? Isn't that some kind of American thing Ed? You ever heard of that before?"
Eddie shook his head. "No, never."
"No, not sure what that is. You're in Great Britain now, remember. We have many, many different rules here," she stressed threateningly.
"Listen, I anit sayin' nothing; my life wouldn't be worth livin' if I did," Bella replied adamantly.
"Well, we have all the time in the world," Charlie answered, glancing across to Eddie. "You hungry Ed? Fancy some extra rich, luxury chocolate gateaux, or how about a piece of the summer strawberry variety?"
"Mmm, they sound divine," he replied. "Think I'll have a piece of each," he smiled, reaching into a cupboard for some plates.
"Me too," she said, joining him.
Bella's eyes followed Charlie and Eddie's movements as they cut huge pieces of gateaux and proceeded to dig into them.
"Woah, this one is to die for," Eddie exclaimed, his mouth full.
"Fancy a drink too?" Charlie said.
"Great idea; I forgot about the champers. It's going to go down a treat with this," he replied, placing his plate overflowing with gateaux down to reach for the champagne bottle.
Bella watched intently but remained silent.
Sometime later, as Eddie began to dig into his forth piece of gateaux, Charlie put her plate down and called him for a word outside of the room.
"You think this is working?" Eddie whispered to her once outside the kitchen door.
"Not a chance. Was worth a try though. We are going to have to let her go. But I was thinking, she must have got here in a car; if I can get her number plate, I could use it to track her down perhaps."
"Is all of that true?" he asked with interest, "what you said in there."
"About working for an elite unit, yes. About her being under investigation, no," she replied.
"But I thought you said that you and Luke weren't doing that kind of work anymore," Eddie pointed out.
"We aren't… well, not in an official capacity anyway. Between you and me only Ed, when I told everyone that I had given up the MI5, I wasn't entirely telling the truth. I help out with investigations every now and then when they need me," she explained. "As far as this woman is concerned, though, it is unofficial; I'm just helping Luke out. She doesn't have to know that though…oh and neither does Luke… need to know what I have just told you I mean. As far as he's concerned, I no longer do agent work."
Eddie scratched his head. "Bloody Nora Charlie, I can't keep up with your life at all. So you are a charity worker by day, secret agent by night? They could write books about this!"
She laughed. "Come on, let's release her."
Before she pushed open the door again though she stopped and turned to speak to him over her shoulder.
"Is it me, or do you feel slightly nauseous, Ed?" she asked.
"So nauseous!" he replied. "I never want to see another gateaux as long as I live!" Chapter 23

He ran his eyes over her face, shining from the sheen of rainwater; they moved then, hovering briefly on the v in the bodice of her dress as she leant forward, before moving to the length of thigh that was exposed from the slit of her evening gown.

 

Charlie was standing in the reception area, staring out of the front entrance at the taxis pulling up to take guests home and wondering what to do about Luke's disappearing act, when finally he emerged through the darkness, strolling down the driveway towards her.
Exiting the building, she approached him.
"Where on earth have you been?" she asked with annoyance. "I've found the discs but I was about to go home."
Then, as she scanned his face, which looked decidedly and worryingly sheepish, she noticed his black eye.
"Luke, what the hell have you been up to?" she reprimanded him.
"Err," he ran a hand through his hair and glanced nervously around himself. "You got the discs, great," he said, changing the subject. "Let's get in a cab. We can watch them at the guest house; Mrs Bennett has a player and TV," he said, grabbing her by the arm and urging her towards one of the taxis.
She resisted. "Wait, what have you done, Luke? And where is your car?"
He glanced briefly back at her but seemed more concerned with getting the attention of a taxi driver.
"Let's go. I'll tell ya on the way," he replied.
During the ride however, which only took five minutes or so, Luke seemed reluctant to say anything within earshot of the driver and so Charlie waited until they were inside the guest house to broach the subject again.
Luke immediately led Charlie into Mrs Bennett's lounge where all was dark and quiet, apart from the ticking of the mantelpiece clock. He went straight to the television and turned it on at the wall, along with the DVD player. After lowering the volume of the television with a remote control that had been resting on top of the DVD player, he turned to Charlie